October snow storm 2011

October Snow Storm at the Funny Farm 2011

Ceiling Fans Go Up in the Tasting Room

A little more progress on the winery tasting room as we install ceiling fans. The raw floor boards will be going to the mill next week to be planned on both sides and have a tongue and groove put in them. Should take about two weeks to get them back and start laying them down. Once the floor is in we'll stain it. Should look beautiful. The wood is from trees on our property that was sawn into rough boards.

Hurricane Irene 2011

Hurricane Irene dropped a great deal of rain on our area which led to the French Creek behind our home to overflow it's banks and flood the meadow to about two feet. I was able to take the canoe out and make my way through the woods and around the cabin on our property. Erin and Sydney had a great time wading around the meadow and splashing in the overflow. Five hours after the meadow was flooded the kids wanted to go back down for another round of wading in the water. We made our way down around the barn to the meadow and to our astonishment all the water was gone. The grass was exposed again and it looked there had never even been any water in the meadow. The kids were thoroughly disappointed!

Painting the Barn Roof for Solar Panels

We had the barn and long shed roofs painted today and they look great. The color is hard to see but it is a hunter green. Kind of on the dark side. I wanted to get the roof a sealed up and painted before we had the solar panels installed. The solar project will reduce our electric bill to zero and may even provide some extra electricity back to PECO. If there is a positive balance then PECO has to write me a check and they better not be late!!! The painting of the roof is also one of the main steps to building the winery. Now that the house has much improved in livability it is time to concentrate on the winery. A very exciting time, putting things in the barn instead of tearing them out. Here are a few photos of the men painting the roof.

We bought a small sailboat over the weekend to take to deep creek with us this summer. A very nice little boat, will hold all the girls and me and suzanne. A good skill to have in your basket of tricks.

Solar is on the way

Morrison Bon Fire 2010

Every one loves to sit around a roaring fire!! The other weekend we finally torched the bon fire waiting for over a year in our back meadow. It was great to sit around the fire with family and friends and swap some stories about kids and work and all the things we spend our time doing. The best thing of all is that we were all together having fun. The great thing about living on a farm is that you can do things like have a huge bon fire or ride four wheelers or shoot a gun. Things that society generally frowns upon. It brings me back to a time when things were much simpler and we were kids with very few rules or restrictions.
To simpler things that make us feel good!!!!!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Paint Makes Everything New

Started painting the barn today and it felt great to feel like we are moving forward on getting it renovated. Its been a long time of tearing things out of the barn and we have a long way to go but I always go by the adage that "you can eat an elephant, it just takes one bite at a time". I still have a hell of a lot of bites to take out of that old barn but for today I feel great about building a business in that beautiful old barn. The light streams through the windows in the morning and it looks wonderful. I can imagine it all decorated for fall, music playing and people stopping by for a drink. WOW!

Living without the MAN on my back

You know what burns my ass, other than a three foot flame, being dependent on companies and government that have too much control over my decisions. Nothing would make me happier than to sail away or move to the mountains and drop off their radar so I don't have to have any contact with them. Not being able to do that at this time of my life, I will have to settle for trying to eliminate them one by one. Last year we bought an old multi fuel wood boiler that can run on oil if needed to heat our home. We are able to heat our house and our hot water with wood from our property and each season I need to cut, split and stack about 8 cords of wood. It's a good workout and will help me stay fit into old age since I don't really exercise. I love the giant wood boiler in our basement. It's a 30 year old Tarm 50, now called BioHeatUSA and the house has never been warmer. Both Suzanne and I enjoy going down stairs into the basement opening up the boiler door, seeing that orange glow of embers and throwing a few more logs on. Its a great feeling when everyone else is saying "no, not temperatures in the thirties tonight" and we say "I can't what for it to get cold so we can fire up the old Tarm". Our water is from our well, our heat is from our own trees and hard work, I can't wait to get solar panels and drop off the electric grid and say Good Bye to our electric company PECO. Go ahead raise your rates, I will choose not to use you, because I will make sure I have a choice!!!!! Two down and one to go!! The photo is of Sydney and I getting ready to load some wood into the basement. Since it was good and dry we made a game of it and tried to stack the wood as high as we could in the back of the truck. We're getting pretty good at it as you can see. Our dog Shadow, in the left of the photo, likes to run off with pieces that fall off the truck. I find them all over the yard with the lawn mower. Damn dog!!!!!

It Used to be a smokehouse now it is a better view

Click Here for Slideshow

Suzanne and I have been talking for years about taking down the old smokehouse that sits just out our front door. It has really no purpose for us other than to hide our trash cans and most of all it blocks our view out the big bay window that looks out into the yard and the grape vines when we are in the kitchen. So the other day Suzanne said I really wish that smokehouse was gone and I told that it would be gone at the end of the weekend!!!! So with sledge hammer in hand and a variety of other implements of destruction I went at that smokehouse like a man possessed!!!! By Sunday all that was left was the stone hearth that we wanted to keep and have re pointed. It was a nice place to burn some of the scrap that couldn't be recycled. Now the view is great out our kitchen window and my whole body hurts like hell. Bring on the Advil and a glass of wine!!  Moral of the story is stop talking and start working. You could eat an entire elephant if you wanted to, you just have to start with the first bite.

Ben's Birthday Present from his wife Suzanne

Its not only women that love expensive, hand made, one a kind gifts, imported from Sweden for their birthday. Men love these things also. My wife, who loves me, bought me such a gift. It is a Gransfors Bruks imported from Sweden. Made by the master forger Ulrick Nilsson himself. This hand forged double-bit axe was made by Gransfors Bruks of Sweden and they have been making them since 1902. They have a waiting list to get their axes hence the arrival of mine just after my birthday. Why would one want such a wonderful tool/peace of art you might ask?? Well, I like things simple and when felling a tree for firewood to heat our house I like to get a workout. They say fire wood warms you twice, once when you cut it and once when you burn it. I say it warms you five times, when you cut it, when you split it, when you stack it, when you move it into the house and when you burn it. Not many things last a life time or two or three, but this axe will and I love it. Thank you for a wonderful birthday present Suzanne, Kass, Sydney, Erin and Jessica.

Everyone loves a bonfire

It was a Friday night and the girls were all happy and excited it was the weekend and what were we going to do???!!!!! Suzanne and I were really tired from the week and ready to just sit and relax. So I combined the two thoughts gathered up some old wood and we decided to have and bonfire and a glass of wine in the backyard. Everyone loves a fire. The kids were happy they got to roast marsh mellows and Suzanne and I were happy, we got to sit around the fire and relax. It was a great impromptu night!!

What your work gloves say about you

I was looking at my gloves the other day and thought "HHHHmmm" they say a lot. Like a persons clothing or their other belongings, things that we own say something about who we are. I think these gloves say I'm thrifty or cheap if you like, or maybe they say I hate to shop!!!

What's it mean??

Photo Gallery Click Here

"Life is good when children sing their summer song of play and sleep deep from an exhausting day."

What's it mean?? Well it means that when children play so hard all day that they fall asleep in the craziest positions before they can even make it to their bedroom, hours before their bedtime. Two of them halfway on the couch and half off, one on the floor clutching a towel as a blanket and one on the spare bed. All of them still in their bathing suites.

Mom and I look around at the carnidge and smile knowing that we have some time to ourselves now. MMMMmmm Summer!

The 4-Fair and kids being kids without technology

CLICK FOR PHOTO GALLERY

The important part of this entry is down a bit but I feel I need to set the stage.

Sydney and Erin just finished up their 4-H project of raising and showing their pigs. The project took three months and the pigs go from 65lbs to 250lbs and get judged at the local 4-H fair with all the other beef cattle, sheep and pigs. Getting the pigs on the truck to take them to the fair where they would be housed for the next two days was an ordeal. We really didn't have a great way of getting them on the truck. The plan was to back the pickup to a stone wall about the same height as our truck and walk the pigs from their pen onto the tailgate and into the truck. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong!! As soon as we let one of them out of their pen it took off running in circles, like a dog doing a little spaz run. After it calmed down we tried to lead it around the barn towards the truck feeding it Little Debbie snack cakes as a treat. Well we got it all the way around the barn and up to the truck when the pig looked into the back of the truck and wanted nothing to do with it, and did an about face taking off across the yard with me clamped to his back trying to stop him. It looked like one of those cartoons you watched as a kid. I learned an important lesson, you can't make a 250lbs pig do anything it doesn't want to do!!!! After a brief rest we used a few 2 x 4 foot pieces of plywood to herd the pig back to the truck. When he was just about to step or not step on the tailgate I rushed him from behind and hit him with my whole body like a linebacker hitting one of those blocking sleds on a football field and in the truck we landed!! One down one to go!! We decided to take the one we had over to the show and come back for the other one, so as to not push our luck trying to get another one in the truck and have the one in there get out when we opened the tailgate. Off to the show we go. At the show we just pushed him out of the truck and slid him down a ramp and into his pen he went. We took the other pig over the next morning.

The really great thing about the farm show is that once your there, your there all day. Picture a gym sized building with hundreds of animals, all in their pens and the kids are all taking care of them. Getting them food and water and bedding, cleaning out their pen, making sure they are cool and comfortable. They are not worrying about what they are wearing, or texting all their friends constantly, or talking on their phones, or playing computer games, of surfing Facebook. They are helping each other and playing tag and investigating all there is to see, using their imagination, just the way its been done for a long time.

Sydney in the show ring.

Water Beetles

Sometimes it can be hard to slow down and appreciate mother natures gifts to us, but this morning I was treated to a funny little water ballet by some water beetles in the creek behind our house. I was busy cutting the fields with the old Massey tractor that's about as old as me and trying to get it all done before I had to head to work, when I stopped by the creek to take a break. There I saw about ten little black water beetles flying across the surface and running in circles chasing each other. They seemed to float on the water. I watched them for a few minutes and was amazed at how they can live in the water like that. After a bit I was ready to get going again but the urgency of getting it all done before I left for work seemed to fade away and I really enjoyed the rest of my morning at home being out in the sun and cool breeze and the smell of fresh cut grass.

Everyone Loves Fireworks

Fireworks at the Morrison Funny Farm.

Don't need anything more, crying with joy!

"Life is good when children sing their summer song of play and sleep deep from an exhausting day."

Summer has Arrived at the Funny Farm

I can now say that summer has arrived at the Funny Farm. Tonight I was home cutting the grass after work and looking forward to jumping in the pool to cool off. The sounds of summer at our house were presenting themselves in force. The mower was going, little girls were running around making noises of joy that only they can make and Suzanne was cooking dinner to be brought out pool side. The best part was when it got dark out and we turned on the underwater pool light and the Christmas lights hanging on the fence around the pool. I sat there by the water listening to Sydney, Erin and Jessica romp around in the water like seals in the ocean. Diving and surfacing, looking for one another, pouncing on anyone that may have let their guard down and slipping away just as fast. Their little bodies sliding through the water effortlessly, moving like only children can move, like their bodies where as light as air, weightless in the water, and throwing shadows all around the pool bottom and the trees above. Then to add to the summer scene where the lighting bugs blinking through the air and the hundreds of spring peepers singing their love song. 

Life is good when children sing their summer song of play and sleep deep from an exhausting day. Now I must carry each one of them up to bed. A true labor of love, for each day they get heavier and trip harder but one no parent ever wants to not be able to perform.

Escape from Sowlcatraz

So I get a call from Kass on my way home from work asking how far away from home I am? I asked why and she said that mom needs me home right a way because the pigs broke out of their pen!  I still had half an hour to go so Suzanne was on her own. It takes a truly strong woman to take on four, hundred pounds or more pigs and three screaming kids in the rain and mud. Apparently the pigs were all over the place when she pulled in the driveway after work and they had no intention of going back into their pen or anywhere Suzanne and the girls wanted them to. In the end, Suzanne said the pigs got tired and decided to return to their pen all on their own. Moral of the story: over build everything and marry a strong woman! I have a strong one and yesterday was our twenty year anniversary.